


Mickey Milkovich (and Other Bad Ideas)

by Ijustwannaread



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bipolar Ian Gallagher, Domestic, Family Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Ian Gallagher and Mickey Milkovich in Love, M/M, Mickey Does Crime Poorly, Protective Siblings, Set in that magical time period between season 4 and 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:54:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24692602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ijustwannaread/pseuds/Ijustwannaread
Summary: Mickey and Ian take a trip to the ER, and Fiona and Lip get a rare glimpse into the magnificent shitshow that is their relationship.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 7
Kudos: 282





	Mickey Milkovich (and Other Bad Ideas)

Mickey was off his game. Unfortunately, no Southsider ever had the luxury of being a little tired, distracted, least of all one born into the Milkovich clan.

He'd been navigating the day in a bleary-eyed fog after Ian had kept him up all night for the third time this week. Mickey was starting to think of being a light sleeper as more of a curse than a survival tactic at this point. But he couldn't help feeling a bit giddy whenever he thought about the early morning hours he spent with his boyfriend, laughing and fooling around.

Maybe Mickey could blame Iggy for this shit. The fucking moron was under too much heat to do anything useful for the family other than lie low and trying not to get picked up, which left Mickey to take care of everything else the rest of his brothers, cousins, and uncles were too shit-faced to deal with.

The last thing Mickey wanted to deal with tonight was shaking down some jerk-off who shorted them after they'd kindly set him up with some of Terry's favorite assault weapons (because fuck Terry). Mickey knew him as one of the burly, ape-like regulars from the gun-club. He was just some run-of-the-mill aging neo-Nazi. Mickey had been roughing up neighbors since before he had a single chest hair, so he'd definitely put plenty of people twice his size in traction. It was a matter of well-hidden butterfly knives and (he would take this to the grave) some of the self-defense techniques he learned from Mandy, using people's weight against them and shit like that.

No matter who would take the blame for this one, Mickey was on a war path when he stumbled home after very nearly losing a kidney during his outing. His vision had definitely blacked out when the guy's fists had connected with his abdomen once, twice, then three times. Luckily, the encounter ended in a case of “you should see the other guy.” Mickey had left him half choked out with seeping stab wound, pockets emptied. Messier than preferable, but it would have been messier if Mickey had let some dusty troll beat him to death and leave his body under the train tracks.

Mickey wincingly checked his phone. 3:01 am. With any luck, by the time Mickey dragged his ass home, Ian would be home from the club to help him lick his wounds.

After Mickey painfully plodded his way up the stairs and into the threshold of the house, he could immediately tell that he walking into a major shit show. Svetlana and Nika were both passed out cold on the couch, with Iggy facedown on the floor. At least Svet had some clothes on, but the same couldn't be said for Nika. Mickey grit his teeth. He kept telling Iggy not to sample the drugs he should be selling, but apparently Iggy really had burnt out every last braincell he'd been born with.

Mickey thought briefly about checking to make sure they were all breathing, but he seriously couldn't be bothered. He did check on Yevgeny, who was deeply asleep in his crib. He felt a pang in his chest that really didn't have anything to do with his new, spectacular set of bruises. Small mercies, this baby born into arguably one of the most fucked up families on earth had to be a goddamn angel. A baby that sleeps through the night. Jesus Christ.

Mickey managed to break out of his pathetic moment of introspection and trudge towards his own room. There was a light under the door.

Ian was sitting in his underwear on the bed. He was half-way through a joint, scribbling something in one of his notebooks. Still covered in that hideous, sticky body glitter from his shift.

Mickey dropped his coat on the floor and shucked off his boots. Ian turned and smiled at him languidly.

“Iggy shared some good shit from that new supplier,” Ian announced, giving the joint a little wave.

“Yeah, not that good,” Mickey muttered, darkly. “If it was any good, it would finally kill that motherfucker and do us all a favor.”

Ian just raised his eyebrows, and gave Mickey a once over.

“That kinda night, huh?”

“Gotta make an honest living somehow,” Mickey shot back, and swallowed down a sudden wave of nausea. The walls of the room were swirling. The only thing in the world he wanted was to lay down and let Ian hold him until he felt centered again.

Mickey managed to maneuver out of his jeans with as little movement as possible, but there was really no way to take his shirt off without moving his arms, so it stayed on.

Gingerly, Mickey laid down next to Ian and wormed his way under the blankets. He closed his eyes and willed the room to stop spinning for a second so that he could enjoy the fucking moment with Ian, who seemed wonderfully mellow after smoking. Ian’s even-keeled mood was honestly a relief after he had just spent days becoming increasingly unpredictable and on edge. Must be Iggy got a good strain, none of that weird shit that always just got Mickey paranoid as fuck and kinda pissy.

He felt Ian shift next to him, and then Ian's warm lips were pressed to his jawline.

“Jesus, you're freezing,” Ian remarked. He slipped a leg between Mickey's, which sent a cold shiver down his spine.

“What are you gonna do about it, huh?” Mickey taunted, almost automatically. He immediately regretted it after it brought on an intense wave of nausea. He wondered seriously if he could pull off getting laid without moving an inch.

“You feeling like a pillow princess tonight, Mick?” Ian teased. Mickey could hear the laughter in his voice.

In his head, Mickey swiftly rolled over on top of Ian, dropped an incredibly witty one-liner, then heroically sucked his dick for a minimum of thirty minutes.

What actually happened was that Mickey moved his head about a centimeter, then was bowled over by a wave of sickness so intense that it sent him staggering for the bathroom and gagging the whole way. The sudden movement brought on a wave of throbbing pain through his abdomen that almost sent him to the floor.

By some miracle, his clumsy scramble got him to the bathroom in time to purge what felt like most of his intestinal tract.

“Woah, Mickey-” Ian's voice was barely audible over the ringing in his ears. Mickey was seeing stars and couldn't trust himself to move from his position draped over the toilet bowl, but he gave a pathetic little wave towards Ian's general direction, which hopefully conveyed, “ _ I'm okay, leave me here to die or I'll slam your dick in the toilet lid. _ ”

Mickey faintly felt warm hands drifting over the base of his neck, then his face.

“Jesus.” There was something in the tone of Ian's voice that made Mickey pry his eyes open. The panic he heard became pretty plain when Mickey saw the bright red color streaking the bile he'd just brought up.

“Aw. Shit.”

\-----

“Mickey, can you make it back to bed?” Ian asked, his mind racing. He needed to do some serious Googling to figure out his plan of action, and leaving Mickey on the scummy bathroom floor was not the move he wanted to make. He seriously needed to give the house a deep clean. A person could probably get hepatitis just by being in contact with those grubby tiles for more than thirty seconds.

Mickey, unsurprisingly, flipped him off and mumbled something unmistakably threatening but ultimately unintelligible. Ian rocked back on the balls of his feet, ghosting his hands uselessly over Mickey's back. Finally, he stood up and grabbed a blanket off of the bed and pulled it over Mickey's shoulders. In the cool light of the bathroom, it was much more apparent that Mickey was pasty white, shaking, and covered in a sheen of cold sweat.

Ian paced the bedroom with his phone, his own fingers trembling slightly as he typed in a Google search and scrolled through an assortment of articles telling him exactly the opposite of what he wanted to hear. Ian really didn't want to drag Mickey to an ER. Without backup, it might actually be impossible.

He poked his head out to the living room, where he was reminded helpfully that Yevgeny was asleep and everyone else was extremely strung out. Half of his brain was telling him the only option was to pull out the Southside-white-knuckle-it approach, but a louder half of his brain was telling him he didn't want to gamble his boyfriend literally going into shock and dying.

With that though, Ian raced back toward the bathroom to make sure Mickey hadn't already snuffed it.

Small mercies, Mickey was still curled up on the bathroom floor, breathing rapidly and clenching his fists in pain. Ian crouched down next to him.

“Mickey, what happened?” Ian silently prayed there wasn't a gaping bullet hole he was somehow missing. Mickey was wearing a light gray t-shirt, he'd have to be pretty blind to miss a massive blood stain.

Mickey cracked an eye open and breathed through his nose.

“Just a hell of a sucker punch or two, man. I'll be fine,” he grit out, and then gagged up another round of dark red liquid.

Ian pulled aside a section of the blanket and yanked up the hem of Mickey's t-shirt. There was a slew of mottled purple bruises that stretched across his pale skin. Ian couldn't tell from Mickey's hunched position whether it was swollen at all, but it didn't look good. He smoothed the blanket back around Mickey's shoulders and paced back into Mickey's room.

Ian closed the bathroom door halfway so he could keep an eye on Mickey while he dialed Lip's number.

His phone rang five agonizing times, but eventually his brother picked up.

“What's wrong?” Ian sort of resented Lip's semi-accusatory tone, but it wasn't the time to split hairs.

“It's Mickey-”

“Shit, Ian, what did he do-”

“No, man. Fuck. Look, Mickey's hurt. Are you home?”

A half beat passed.

“Yeah, I'm home tonight. What do you need?” Lip made a quick shift from sounding panicked to equal parts wary and confused.

“He's puking like a lot of blood, and I'm still not totally sure what even happened. I can't call an ambulance but I think I gotta take him to the ER or some shit, man.”

“Why can't you call an ambulance?” Ian wanted to tear his hair out. If Lip just wanted to him to admit that the Milkovich house looked like a meth den at the moment, he wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

“Who's gonna foot the bill, Lip? Jesus! I just need a car and someone to watch Yev.”

Ian heard Lip huff out a breath over the line.

“Lip?”

“Okay, give me twenty.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey- is Mandy there?”

Ian just hung up. He felt like this entire body was vibrating from nerves. For a brief, sickening moment, he stood there paralyzed. His mind was racing, but he couldn't land on a single actual thought of what to do. Finally, after a glance at Mickey's clothes on the floor, he decided to try to coax him into some warmer layers.

Upon a frantic search through all of Mickey's drawers, Ian decided he had to settle on a pair of his own fleece sweatpants that Mickey was sure to drown in. Mickey would look cute with the bottoms all rolled up.

He grabbed the pants and barged back into the bathroom to find his boyfriend still hadn't moved an inch, but somehow had lost any remaining shred of color in his face.

“Mickey?”

“Fuck. Off.”

Ian followed a bizarre impulse and tried to get Mickey's attention by wiping off a smear of red at the corner of his mouth with his thumb. It was decidedly not sexy, Ian discovered, but it did get Mickey to peel his eyes open and shoot him a death glare. Proof of life. Ian would take it.

“I need you to put some pants on, Mick,” Ian held up the sweatpants. Mickey looked at them like Ian had just suggested he put on a tutu and perform Swan Lake.

“I'm good right here, bossy. Go the fuck to bed, Gallagher.”

Ian wished to himself that Svetlana was awake, because he would probably just roll up her sleeves, kill Mickey with a hammer, pull the sweats onto his cold corpse, and then bully him until he came back to life.

Ian suddenly felt a jolt as he remembered the sorry scene in the front room.

“Pants. Now,” he commanded, and set them down next to Mickey before jogging into the main room.

Having lost track of time, he had no idea how long he had before Lip showed up, but he absolutely had to clean up some of the mess before Lip could judge the living hell out of it. He checked quickly to make sure Yev was still sleeping peacefully, then made a made dash to hide any and all drug paraphernalia. He covered Svet, Iggy and Nika with blankets so that they might look casual, like they fell asleep watching a movie or some shit. He was in the middle of trying to cram a sawed-off shotgun into a drawer when he heard the door creak open.

“Ian?” Lip called. Ian whirled around, and threw a finger to his lips.

“Shhhh – Yev's asleep,” he cautioned, before realizing that a stormy-eyed Fiona was standing at Lip's shoulder.

“Hey, Fi.” Ian gestured for them to follow him quickly, but he could feel their eyes taking in the whole scene.

“What's going on, Ian?” Fiona hissed, grabbing at his arm as he ushered them into Mickey's room and shut the door. Ian felt his skin crawl when Fiona searched his face, wide-eyed with a mix of concern and barely concealed anger. Lip looked unrepentant.

“Look, guys, I'm really glad to see you, but I really just need a ride to get Mickey to the ER. I've got it totally covered.”

Fiona raised an eyebrow. Lip scrubbed his face.

“I got a car out front. You said you needed someone to watch the kid. Brought you Fiona,” Lip explained, somehow making it sound more like an ultimatum than a favor.

Ian crossed his arms and nodded a few too many times.

“Although I don't see why Svetlana can't watch her own kid,” Fiona questioned. Ian felt like breaking into a cold sweat.

“Work in the morning, not sure how long the wait will be,” he lied, and could tell immediately that his siblings weren't buying jack shit.

“Can you help me with him?” He asked, to which he received grim nods.

Ian slowly opened the bathroom door, flanked by Fiona and Lip on both sides. Mickey gave a sideways glance from his huddle on the floor, and the second he saw the new arrivals he seemed to summon some energy from a deep reserve and flung himself up and backwards.

“What the fuck, Gallagher?”

“Mickey – Hey, Mick, it's fine -” Ian shot forward, hands up placatingly. Mickey gave a sharp pained yelp and dry heaved into the sink. Ian grabbed at Mickey's shoulders. Mickey swatted at him with the arm that wasn't gripping the side of the sink for dear life. Finally, Fiona intervened and flung one of Mickey's arms over her shoulder. Ian followed suit, until he both had Mickey vertical.

“The fuck you call the cavalry on me for?” Mickey asked between frantic gulps of air.

“To drag your sorry ass to the ER,” Lip interjected, picking up the fallen blanket and sweatpants and backing out to allow Fiona and Ian to do the actual dragging. “You're welcome,” he added, for effect. Ian rolled his eyes pointedly at Lip.

“Fuck you very much,” Mickey slurred. His words lost any semblance of threatening capacity when he was being dragged bodily towards the front door.

“Got him?” Fiona asked, and Lip took over her position. When Fiona returned next to them, she had Yevgeny draped over her shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Ian hissed.

“I'm sure as shit not staying here alone. He's coming with us.” Fiona raised her eyebrows challengingly. Ian opened his mouth to protest, but then realized he really didn't want to say anything that could serve as an invitation for his sister to express how she really felt about his living situation. He didn't want to hear it at any time, but even less now when he was worried Mickey might be in serious shit.

So Ian fixed his mouth into a stoic line and focused on maneuvering Mickey as carefully as possible into the back seat of the sleek car that Lip had parked in front of the house.

From the driver's seat, Lip turned to survey Ian as he pulled Mickey's head onto his lap and let him stretch out as much as possible in the sedan's back seat.

“Everyone good back there?” Lip asked, expression unreadable. Ian nodded once. Lip gave him a hard look, then turned to put the car into drive.

“If he pukes again, this car is getting detailed and you can be sure as shit I'm not paying for it.”

\-----

Lip and Fiona sat together in the parking lot of the dumpiest hospital in Chicago in an oppressive silence for the first fifteen minutes of their wait. Ian had convinced them both in his insanely earnest way that it would be best if he go in with his boyfriend alone, leaving the two of them to marinate in the strangeness of the night.

It was Fiona who broke the silence.

“Jesus, Lip, are we really gonna let our brother keep on living in that fucking flop house?”

Lip threw his head back against the seat and scrubbed at his face.

“You really think we're going to be able to convince him to do shit? At least he's finally back on his feet, Fi.”

Fiona suppressed an overpowering urge to throttle her brother. It helped that she was still holding a sleeping infant in her arms, but it was still a close thing.

“The Milkoviches are bad news. Period. Terry Milkovich is an actual fucking Nazi for Christ's sake! You want to just let our brother become a drug mule for the Klan or-?”

“You think I don't know how fucked up that family is?” Lip cut in. Fiona found that memories of times she had to brave the Milkovich house in order to try and retrieve Lip from Mandy's skanky clutches did not serve Lip's case in the slightest.

“Of course you're taking his fucking side,” she spat.

“Yes! I'm taking his side, what ever the hell that even fucking means! Don't you dare accuse me of not looking out for him. I'm about the only person in this family who ever looks out for him.”

A dark pit formed in Fiona's stomach, but it wasn't just righteous indignation. No matter what she did, Ian was like a fortress. He always leveled any of her attempts to understand his life with casual lies and swift subject changes.

Fiona wanted to protest - fuck Lip, she was only thing that kept the family from descending into Milkovich-level disfunction. But a larger part of her just felt damn hurt.

Lip must have sensed this, because his face softened a fraction. He stared out towards the bright ER lights in the distance, obviously deciding how much of an asshole he was about to be.

“You even know how long he's been hung up on Mickey fucking Milkovich?”

Fiona vowed to kick Lip's ass as soon as the nightmarish night was over. For now, all she could do was raise a challenging eyebrow.

“A while now,” she guessed.

Lip blew out a breath.

“Try almost a couple of years.” Fiona wouldn't say she was surprised, exactly. She mainly felt betrayed.

“I don't know, Fi,” Lip sighed. “That family. It's like they have some sort of demented thrall.”

Fiona snorted out a weak laugh. Lip cracked a smile.

“You saying you're just gonna give up, like that?” Fiona prodded.

“Fuck no. Just... we gotta let it run its course. Or he's gonna split again and it'll be on us this time.”

“Run its course? What do you mean? We gotta wait until Mickey runs one of Ian's exes over with a car?”

Lip looked stricken, but Fiona wasn't feeling repentant.

“Who the fuck told you that?”

“Come on, Lip,” Fiona rolled her eyes, “You told Kev, you think he wouldn't tell V, V wouldn't spill?”

“Low fucking blow.” Lip recovered.

“Give as good as I got.”

Suddenly, there was a tap on the passenger side window. Fiona glanced over and saw Ian standing hunched against the cold night air. Fiona threw the door open and beckoned him in, making room on the bench seat.

“What's the news?” Lip asked. Ian glanced down at Yevgeny and smiled when he saw that the baby was still out like a light.

“Ian?” Fiona asked, and ran a hand up and down Ian's arm like it might warm him up. He looked tired.

“Might be a while still. They said he was in shock, so they've been giving him a bunch of tests and fluids and shit. He's getting another scan now, and they wouldn't let me in so I came out here,” Ian explained.

Lip and Fiona both nodded vaguely, not sure where that left them.

“Um, the ER nurses said it was the right call bringing him in. That it could have been really bad if he didn't get help. So thanks for coming,” Ian said, voice tight in a way that made Fiona need to find a way to haphazardly juggle the baby while throwing an arm around his shoulder.

“Of course. Any time,” Lip said. Fiona could feel his “I told you so look” viscerally, but decided instead to rest her head in the crook of Ian's shoulder. She felt him take a deep breath.

“I want to stay with Mickey. I don't know how long, but-”

“Hey, how about we take the kid home? He can sleep there for a bit, then you can pick him up later?” Fiona suggested. “As long as you can promise I won't wake up with an angry Russian woman threatening me with a blunt weapon?”

Ian huffed out a laugh, then looked a bit helplessly at Fiona.

“Don't really wanna make a promise I can't keep.”

“Sound like a plan, then?” Fiona urged.

“Okay,” Ian managed. “Thanks.”

“See you at home, Ian,” Fiona said, they watched Ian slip back out of the car and into the night.

\-----

Ian was excessively lucky that Fiona had the day off, and that Liam and Yevgeny seem to get along swimmingly. Lip had decided to fuck off back to the university library, so Fiona spent the majority of the day compulsively looking for an update text she knew Ian would never send. Finally, at around five in the afternoon, her phone buzzed.

_ Out in 30, can pick up some dinner on the way over? _

_ Sounds good,  _ she typed back,  _ long as you're paying :) _

_ A _ round an hour later, a total junker Fiona didn't recognize pulled up in front of the house. Ian and Mickey rolled out and the car immediately peeled off, tires screeching.

“Jesus, how did Iggy ever get his license? He drives like he thinks he's Vin Diesel,” Ian's voice carried as they made their way up the steps.

“You think that joker has a license? He's never driven legally a day in his life,” Mickey snorted. “Bet you got a real license, Goody-Two Shoes.”

“Perfect score on my driver's test, asshole,” Ian said, and they made their way in to see Fiona waiting for them on the couch.

“Hey, Fi,” Ian said. He was carrying a bag of Chinese food and holding an arm protectively over Mickey, who was wearing an expression that indicated he'd rather walk into a firing squad than the Gallagher household.

“Come sit, I'm starving,” Fiona beckoned them into the house. She had spent most of the day mentally planning how she would interrogate Mickey on everything from his lifestyle to his intentions with her little brother, but listening to his and Ian's easy conversation took the wind out of her sails. Even if it did sound playfully adversarial, it was hard not to appreciate the open warmth in her brother's voice.

Ian dutifully headed towards the kitchen, and Mickey followed him doggedly, studiously avoiding eye contact with Fiona. She noted that he had lost some of the corpse-like pallor from last night, but he was clearly holding himself extremely carefully.

As Ian began extracting cartons out of the bag and Fiona busied herself with plates, Mickey stood awkwardly over the table.

“Where's the kid?” He asked quietly.

“Upstairs. Lucky I still had Liam's old crib in the attic. I put him down for a nap a while ago, but I can grab him,” Fiona said.

“I'll get him,” Ian volunteered, dropping a container of rice and bolting up the stairs two at a time.

“Grab Liam, too?” Fiona called after him. She still wasn't used to this wilder version of Ian. 

There was an oppressive silence as Fiona set down some plates and Mickey studied the floor.

“Sit down, Mickey,” Fiona commanded. She tried to keep her voice neutral but it sounded more bitter than she intended. She felt like an asshole, remembering that he'd spent the better part of the last twenty-four hours in the hospital.

“I'm good,” Mickey returned, eyes steely. Fiona rolled her eyes, and decided to focus her attention on finding clean silverware.

Thankfully, Ian came thundering down the stairs holding the baby. Liam stumbled after him, trying to keep up.

“Ian's home!” He announced triumphantly. Fiona beamed back at him. Liam was usually so quiet and withdrawn, but he lit up when his brothers were around. 

“I know, buddy! Ready for dinner?”

“Yeah!”

Ian shifted Yevgeny in his arms, and made his way to the table.

“Geez Mick, why the hell are you still on your feet?” He said, sitting down.

“Bite me,” Mickey shot, but found the seat next to him and carefully lowered into it.

“I can dig out Liam's old high chair, if you want,” Fiona suggested, watching Ian awkwardly serve himself rice while holding on to Yevgeny.

“Nah, I got him,” Mickey said, shifting his weight towards Ian, who looked skeptical.

“I don't know, they said you gotta take it easy-”

“Come on, man. Unless your sister gave him a pair of brass knuckles I think I can handle it,” Mickey protested. Ian hesitated for a second, and then gently coaxed the baby into Mickey's arms. Fiona tried to busy herself by opening a beer bottle and scooping some lo mein onto her plate, but she couldn't help but watch with a particular fascination. Seeing Mickey Milkovich handle an infant was kind of like reading one of those articles about a lion and a bunny rabbit becoming unlikely friends. Visually incongruent but oddly heartwarming.

Ian started plowing into his dinner like it was his first real meal in a week. Mickey just held on to the baby and stole glances at Ian like he was the only thing in the world that mattered.

_ Okay _ , Fiona thought.  _ Okay. _

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please do not think too hard about the details/logistics of this story because I promise they will not hold up. I was prompted to write a bit where Ian and Mickey are living together before it all goes to shit in season 5, and this story is what happened. 
> 
> Because the Shameless timeline is BS, for the purpose of this story Ian is 18 and Mickey is 20 (because that's how I see it and I make the rules here). 
> 
> I'm totally new to this show and utterly obsessed with this relationship, so I hope I did the characters a shred of justice.


End file.
